The Wicked Flee (A Marty Singer Mystery Book 5) Read online

  After several minutes had passed and he hadn’t run out of the house with a signed confession, she bowed to the inevitable. She could tighten the screws all she wanted, but if he hadn’t budged by now, there was nothing she could do about it. With a sigh, she put the cruiser in gear, made a long, slow pass in front of Tena’s house, and left.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Eddie traced the outline of the bump where he’d smacked his forehead on the car frame. The lump was the size of a large jelly bean and hurt like hell, but he couldn’t stop playing with it. Indented in and around the skin of the bump was a design that described a perfect negative of the plastic insulation around the window. His fingers returned to explore the unfamiliar bumps and contours that were now part of his body.

  The crazy bitch had come close to punching both of their numbers right there on the Beltway. He’d nearly blacked out when she’d yanked on the emergency brake. Admiration warred with a deep desire to beat her senseless. Besides almost killing them both, she’d no doubt done a couple thousand dollars’ damage to the Mustang. But none of the girls he knew had the brass to even think about what she’d done, let alone go through with it.

  He took a deep breath. His nerves were close to unraveling. Strange rattling noises were coming from the Mustang’s chassis. Going the speed limit was slow torture when all he wanted to do was pound the gas and get things over with. And he still couldn’t tie Lucy up for fear he might get pulled over again, but now he had to watch her out of the corner of his eye in case she decided to do something different but just as insane as her first stunt.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Where are we going? Who are you?”

  “I’m the guy who needs you to be quiet and not move,” he said. “So sit back and relax.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  He shrugged. “There’s nothing you can do, so why not enjoy the ride?”

  “Because you kidnapped me, that’s why,” she said, her voice rising. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to shut up.”

  “That’s not good enough,” she said with false bravado. “I need to know what you’re going to do with me.”

  “You could keep talking and see if I’ll knock your teeth out,” he said.

  “You’re not going to do that,” she said, surprising him. “If you were going to hit me, you would’ve done it already.”

  He grimaced. So she’d caught on. Smart kid. But he had to regain some control over her. It was going to be a long drive if she felt she had some leeway with him. “There’re other ways to hurt without hitting.”

  The implied threat did the job and she went quiet again, curling into a tight ball and pressing herself back into the seam between the passenger’s seat and the door.

  His phone buzzed and he pulled it out to find a text from Gerry. Call me. URGENT. Eddie swore and slipped the phone back in his jacket, considering. He should ignore the message. Gerry was a whiner and had a hard time following the simplest of directions. But he usually communicated in rambling, nonsensical texts, e-mails, and phone calls. The very fact that he’d only sent three words made it more likely that there was a situation worth Eddie’s attention.

  There was a ninety percent chance that it was Gerry being his typical screwup self. But if there was even the hint of a possibility that he was in some kind of hot water that could be traced back to Eddie, he had to know.

  He made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan. The choices were to call Gerry now . . . or wonder if he was on every cop’s radar in a five-state radius. He couldn’t afford to call while he was driving—he wasn’t going to give Lucy another chance to yank the brake again while he was distracted talking to his number one pimp. A second time would probably kill them both. Or rip the guts out of the Mustang and then the whole gig would be done.

  He started looking for an exit. He needed a parking lot, some place dark where he could keep a low profile for five minutes. He’d call Gerry, find out what his lame ass wanted, solve the problem for him, then get back on the road. A short detour. Unfortunate, but necessary.

  It was another quarter hour before an exit came along. A highway sign directed him to a half dozen restaurants and gas stations within a few miles, but he was looking for something with more privacy. A handful of rights and lefts later, he pulled into the sterile white light of a bus stop kiss-and-ride lot. He eased the Mustang into a far parking stall and shut off the car, then turned to Lucy.

  “I have to make a call. You’re going to sit here and keep your mouth shut. I’m going to stare at you while I talk. If you make one move to open the door or honk the horn or do any other thing, I’ll drive you to an empty lot and fucking kill you. I don’t want to do that, but I’ll do that rather than go to jail. Understand?”

  She nodded, cowed. He slipped the phone out and hit Gerry’s number under speed dial.

  “Eddie?”

  “What do you need, Gerry? I told you not to call today of all days.”

  “We got a problem,” Gerry said.

  “What kind of problem? One of the girls kick you in the nuts when you tried to screw her?”

  “A cop came by today.”

  “A cop?” he repeated stupidly. His stomach reached for his feet. “What for? What’d he want?”

  “She. A lady cop. Maryland state trooper.”

  “Okay. What did she want?”

  Gerry took a shaky breath. “One of the girls OD’d on us when she was with a john.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Tiffany.”

  “Shit,” Eddie said. He could see the girl’s face. He’d just put her on the string a few weeks ago. “Where’d they find her?”

  “Kevin—the john—got caught trying to bury her in the woods, the dumb shit.”

  “And he gave you up to this cop?” Eddie asked, his mind racing as he thought about the implications.

  “It must’ve been him. It’s the only connection.”

  Eddie frowned. “How’d he know what to tell her? He didn’t pick up Tiffany at your place, did he? I told you, never do that.”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Gerry said. “I . . . I knew this guy. From before, when I worked at J&L. He already knew where I lived. He’s this lonely schmuck, lives near the state park. I figured we could make him a regular.”

  “What did you tell the cop?”

  “Nothing, Eddie. I mean, even though she was here, it seemed like she was fishing, you know? Like she had my address and nothing else.”

  “She knew your name?”

  “Well, yeah. But that’s it. She asked a couple of questions, I kept my cool, and then she took off. Didn’t have a warrant or anything.”

  “She say if she was coming back?”

  “No. But she said the sheriff’s office was taking over and they’re a bunch of morons. It’s probably going to stop with Kevin, especially if they just call it an overdose.”

  Until they get you to talk, too. Eddie blew out a breath. “Okay, Gerry. Sit tight. Don’t go anywhere or give them a reason to bust you for something minor. If they come back and want you for questioning, you gotta go, but don’t give them anything. They’ll have to release you in twenty-four.”

  “Jesus. Eddie, I don’t know—”

  “Keep it together, Gerry. If they really are fishing, they’ll try to spook you so you’ll cop to something you didn’t do. In the meantime, I’ll work on getting a lawyer in case they want to push this.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “Are they at the Crowne?”

  “Yeah,” Gerry said. “Business as usual.”

  “Good. Don’t call any of them or go out for the take. I’ll pick them up later myself.”

  “What do you want me to do in the meantime?”

  “Don’t go anywhere.
If the cops catch you hitting the road, they might think you’re a flight risk and pull you in. Got it?”

  “Got it. What do we do in the long run?”

  “I’m heading your way right now. We need to get you a lawyer in case things get heavy. We’ll talk when I get there.”

  Gerry sighed. “Thanks for looking out for me, Eddie.”

  “No problem, bro. Keep your head on straight. I’ll be there soon.”

  Eddie ended the call and sat for a second, closing his eyes briefly. He saw his world going black, a future being shut down before it even began. And it would, if he let it. But if he asserted himself and stepped in to protect that future, he could keep the road open. If he had the guts.

  His eyes snapped open and he looked over at Lucy, who was looking back at him with her own dark eyes. His future—in the shape of this young girl—was sitting right here, but it could be taken away in a heartbeat by inaction. He had to be decisive, but he also had to protect what he had. She couldn’t go with him, so he had to get rid of her. He had to stuff her somewhere safe, do what he needed to do, then pick up the pieces and forge ahead.

  An idea occurred to him and he weighed it in his mind. It wasn’t the best possibility, but not the worst, either. It would have to do. He turned the key in the ignition, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed for Glenwood.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Tell me about her,” I said.

  My voice was loud in the little car. Except for my constant sniffling, we’d been quiet for twenty minutes. I’m sure Chuck was going over nightmare scenarios in his head, unable to stop the looping of the mental tape that would explore the worst possibilities, examine them, follow them to some terrible conclusion, then rewind and start from the beginning once more.

  Knowing that, I normally would’ve embarked on some empty chatter to keep Chuck’s mind from imagining the worst, but I was running a fever, operating on three hours of sleep, and had a healthy dose of cold medicine wreaking havoc with my social cues. It had taken most of my powers of concentration to get this far.

  “Shit, Singer. I don’t know,” he said. “Typical sixteen-year-old, I guess, but what do I know about teenage girls? She runs track, does martial arts, hangs out with her friends. Does well in school. Tuck was the only big mistake she’s made since I can remember.”

  “And she lives with your grandparents?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s funny. You and I have known each other for a while but I’ve never asked you about your . . .” I hesitated, at a loss for words. That green syrup I’d gulped down was really screwing with my touch.

  “Family situation?” Chuck filled in for me.

  “Yeah.”

  He sighed and pressed back in his seat. “My mother’s family is from Kosong, in North Korea. When she was eighteen, Mom made it across the DMZ by some miracle, then headed south to Seoul looking for work. She didn’t want to go too far since she’d left her parents behind. Wanted to try and bring them over. North Korean policy on defectors has always been to punish the ones who are left.”

  I nodded to keep him going. The ribbon of highway and highway streetlamps, their light muted by the snow, was hypnotizing.

  “She worked in Seoul for two years. Found a few cleaning jobs here and there. Tough going. No education past high school—and North Korean school, at that. Getting an A in Communist Indoctrination don’t prepare you for real life, you know?”

  “How’d she get along with her new neighbors?”

  “Alone. No family. No love lost with the locals. A foreign national from a shitty neighbor to the north.”

  “That’s being behind the eight ball,” I said.

  He nodded. “Then she met my dad. American. Had a job at the State Department. He thought she was swell and got her pregnant. I came along and made things a little awkward, since he turned out to have a wife and nine-year-old daughter waiting for him back in San Diego.”

  “Oops.”

  “Yeah. We didn’t find that out until later. He was in love and Mom worked on him day and night to get my grandparents out of Kosong. It took five more years, but he pulled some strings or laid out some serious cash and one day our little apartment had two old people living in it I’d never met before.”

  “When did you come here?”

  He shook his head. “It took forever. Dad had made a hell of a mess with the whole ‘I’m already married’ thing. Had to come back and get a divorce back in the States or I would’ve grown up to become a cop in Seoul, not Arlington. We moved to the States . . . maybe two years after we got Grandma and Grandpa over the line.”

  “Tough?”

  He shrugged. “Not easy. I was almost seven, so I had friends. Seoul was all I knew. You know, leaving the stuff that’s important to kids hurts you at the time. But I knew English from my dad and from going to the expat school, so language wasn’t a problem, at least. I stayed fluent in Korean because my grandparents don’t know anything else.”

  “So . . . your dad got a divorce and then your parents waited to have Lucy?”

  “Yeah. The divorce was messy and I think maybe Dad was regretting the way things had gone. Probably wasn’t too eager to have a second kid—it would’ve reminded him of that sharp left turn he’d made in his life. But one thing led to another and Lucy came along when I was twelve.”

  “Pretty weird for you?”

  “Oh, yeah. I was already an angry Goth teen in the making and a little sister didn’t help.” He laughed, remembering. “Half-Korean kid with an accent, wearing eyeliner and a black trench coat. Reading Japanese manga on the bus because no one would talk to me. Jesus. I had no idea what I was or what I was doing.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Ah, the typical deal. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd. Dad saw the way I was heading and stepped in early. He signed me up for a boxing class—can you see it? I weighed, like, ninety-two pounds in ninth grade—and dragged me to the gym after school. I hated every second of it.”

  “Couldn’t have been a total waste,” I said. “I saw what you did to Tuck back there.”

  “Well, one day the instructor made me spar with this kid named Chops. I don’t know his real name, we just called him Chops. Can you guess why?”

  “He told you he was gonna bust your chops?”

  “You got it. I think he heard it on a cartoon or something. Anyway, he was a big kid, and slow. His only tactic was to push you into a corner then pound on your ass until you started crying.”

  “Sounds like a great way to build character.”

  “Yeah. So, the bell rang and he started bulling his way in like he always did, but I decided this time I was tired of it. I closed my eyes and started throwing punches as fast as I could. Missed most of them, but I flailed so much that I still connected ten times and he went down like a sack of shirts. Coach stepped in and stopped me before I could beat poor old Chops into mush. Dad never had to force me to go back.”

  I chewed on that, looking out at the blurry night for long minutes before continuing. “Fast-forward some. If you’re twelve years older than Lucy, you didn’t grow up with her.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. We got close when our parents died, though.”

  I grimaced. “I’m sorry, Chuck.”

  “S’okay. It’s been a while.”

  “What happened?”

  “They got T-boned by a drunk out near Herndon. I was seventeen, Lucy was just a little girl. They’d gone out for a dinner together. First date night they’d had in a year. Just bad luck.”

  I was quiet. “That what made you want to become a cop?”

  After a minute, he took a deep breath. “Probably. I mean, I’m not Batman or anything—it’s not like they were murdered and I dedicated my life to avenging them. The killer was just somebody who should’ve never been driving. But, still. Made me wa
nt to do something positive, you know?”

  “How’d you cope? How’d she cope?”

  “I went into the academy the next year, Lucy moved in with our grandparents, and life went on. I’m like her half uncle, half brother. I bail her out when she does something stupid, chew her out when she does something dangerous, and let my grandparents handle the rest. I figure they did a decent job with my mother. Old-world Korean values and all that.”

  I approached the next question delicately. “Your dad was American, but your last name is Rhee . . .”

  “Yeah. Dad and I had our issues. And I’ve always felt American, you know, but somehow I identify as Korean.” He gave a little laugh. “Hell, I don’t know. It’s complicated. I made the choice and I’m not even sure why. It was easier for Lucy. My grandparents became her guardians, so her keeping the name made more sense.”

  The miles had melted away while we talked. I watched as we passed green Beltway signs listing the major towns along the Northern Virginia corridor: Springfield, Annandale, Fairfax. If I could’ve seen through the trees and buildings and developments to our right, the Capitol and the Washington Monument would be shining bright and clean in the distance. Tysons, McLean, the Virginia state line were fast approaching.

  Despite the hour, traffic increased as we came down the hill to cross the American Legion Bridge, ten lanes spanning the Potomac River splashing rocky and wild a hundred feet below. Traversing the bridge brought us to Maryland and we left I-495 behind as it peeled away to the east to complete the great arc of the Capital Beltway. Our path was north. If the greater DC area was a clock face, we were following I-270 as it shot away from the city at eleven o’clock on the dial. Cars merged and exited the arteries branching off to the twins of the Virginia towns we’d passed earlier: Bethesda, Rockville, and, eventually, Gaithersburg.

  “I haven’t been here in a while,” I said.

  “Can’t cross the river, huh, Singer?” Chuck said, smiling.

  “Hey, man, I crossed it every day and night for thirty years. Just, you know, into the city, not up here in Yahoosville.”